I suppose a lot of it also depends on what your employer covers vs what you have to cover. I did it completely wrong for most of my federal service, staying on the low deductible plan, even though I was covering 1/3 of it. I didn't switch to HDHP/HSA until the last few years. Then I started computing the money I would have saved versus what I would have paid out, including one major operation on the low deductible plan, and really started kicking myself on all the money I would have both saved on the HDHP, and the money made on the HSA invested in index funds.
On the other hand, when I was a young buck, I spent five years of employment at the county dump. Typical local government, benefits were Cadillac all the way, including 100% health care coverage. Not only that, but somehow the union* had negotiated a "money back" option. The county covered health insurance for a family of two adults and three kids. If you had more kids, you had to kick in money.
However, if you had less kids, no kids, or were single, you got money back because the union argued that anyone with fewer dependents than the max was being monetarily penalized by getting fewer benefits. The fewer dependents you had, the more money you got back. As a single guy, I got a ~$3000 "bonus" every year for being single. In that situation, I had zero incentive to look at different health plans (not that HDHPs were even around then). You just took "the best" because that's what was offered at zero cost to you.
* This is another example of why there should be no unions for gov employees, who are in a de facto union just by working for gov, whether fed, state, or local. Although in this case, I guess you could argue that people were "making more money" simply by having more dependents. The fairer way to do it, at least for taxpayers, would have been to just cover the employee, and anyone with more dependents pays to have them covered.